As a child growing up, I can remember my Grandma (Avó) visiting us back in Lagos most holidays. The highlight of her visits for me was making Farofa (a Brazilian delicacy) with Avó in the kitchen and singing the jungle song she taught my brother and me.

Avó will always put me between her legs every day as she treats my hair with a mysterious oil she claimed was a blend of rare ingredients from the Amazon rainforest, passed down through generations.

During this time, I and Avó would bond as I really wanted her around, but in no time, she would have gone back to Brazil.
Whenever Avó was around, all the women in our street would come to take a piece of this oil. Avó was so generous that whenever she came to Nigeria, she would bring some extra to share with these women.

I’m mixed, half Nigerian and half Brazilian. My Brazilian father would always say “Our hair is a result of nurture and not nature”. I never understood this until something happened.

While I gained admission to study at the University of Lagos, Uncle Charles (My mom’s immediate younger brother) traveled with my dad to Brazil for one month. My uncle was popular in my village in Imo State Nigeria for his receding hairline. This made people in the community call him “isi ihere” (meaning that her hair was shy to come forward).

In a month, Uncle Charles came back from Brazil with full hair. This got a lot of people wondering how it happened. Some people thought he had done a hair transplant on his trip to Brazil. Little did they know that he had pleaded with my Avó to give him some of the oil she used on my hair, and had consistently applied it for 1 month while he was in Brazil.

Uncle Charles did something very funny, Instead of coming out straight to my Avó and telling her he wanted to start a business off her oil, he instead kept asking her to send oils every week that he was careless and had poured the remaining he had away. Whenever she sends them, he sells them off to his customers.

Since the process to get this oil takes so much time plus the stress to send it through the airport, Avó decided to stop sending Uncle Charles this oil.

Fast forward to 2021, my friend (Chizaram) and I were discussing. In fact Chizaram was the perfect person to be called “isi ihere” (meaning that his hair was shy to come forward). Because her condition was worse than my Uncle Charles’s.

Knowing that I had an oil that worked, I had to let her share from my oil, and in about 2 months, Chizaram started making braids as opposed to wigs that she always put on. It worked like magic and ever since, Chizaram has been the one pushing me to ask my Avó to send some oils down.

Whenever I brought new oils from Brazil, my hostel in school would be filled up with girls literally begging to have a little for their hair.

I have actually helped more than 200 people with this oil, but it’s stressful getting it down here. I really wanted to try making a business out of this, but because of its scarcity, it would be difficult to always have it in stock.

You can go to Brazil, buy this oil, and send it down to Nigeria, but this will cost you a lot of money in logistics. Hence, I have packed this oil in a container, made it affordable, and even made it easy to use.